If only this was a law.

Cause this isn’t a joke picture; it was made by the flint police department, so you know to keep your pants up.

1. Three people get scammed with a same set of wheels on MBworld.com
2. One person gets fed up and posts about it.
3. They find more information about the scammer linking to other fraudulent eBay auctions.
4. Scammer says he shipped the package via DHL and gives bogus shipping numbers.
5. Word spreads on the net and people come and investigate.
6. People trace his IP to other user names.
7. Scammer keeps claiming he is innocent, even when the actual owner of the wheels speaks up.
8. People find pictures of his actual car and use his license plate to find his address.
9. DH pull packages off with the tracking #’s given and finds them not to be wheels, but empty boxes and books.
10. Scammer caves in and issues refunds to the two people on the forum, but they haven’t actually seen the refund yet, supposedly in process.
11. Criminal and civil court trials are in the near future for the scammer.

If ya’ll want to read the progression of the online investigation click on the bottom link. But beware, it’s 30+ pages. It’s so funny how people think they can scam online: Just because their on a computer, there’s still fingerprints and trails that can lead to conviction.

[SOURCE: MBworld]

Economics sophomore Justin McCelvey was arrested Saturday morning after some of his friends reported apparent Virgina-Tech style threats to UTPD. This is a third degree felony with jail time ranging from 2-10 years if convicted. McCelvey is currently suspended from the UT campus and is in the process of expulsion.

McCelvey told his friend, “College ruined my life” and “I wish I could go into a classroom and shoot everybody.” I was almost the second sniper on the Tower” and “I wish I could sit on top of a bomb and let it go off and blow up everybody.” The conversation lasted 20 to 30 minutes and the friend was obviously concerned. McCelvey does owna shotgun he uses to go hunting, but never brought it on campus. This is just a few weeks after the April 15 arrest of engineering sophomore Jason Liao, who allegedly possessed a gun on campus.

The system is obviously working, but at the same time, is it too easy to report someone. I definitely think this is a case to be investigated, but to immediately work to expel the kid without an in-depth investigation? I guess the university has to do this otherwise parents and students would be outraged, but what does it take to arrest a student? It seems that you can report a threat to the UTPD hotline and get someone arrested that you don’t like, especially during a time like now, during finals. Then the student is expelled from school without a real investigation. It seems that from the comments this was definitely a case to look into, but how often do tey turn away reports? That said, it’s really irresponsible to say something like that to that depth and detail, even if it is a joke.

Also, this brings up the controversial pursuit by some groups for guns on campus. With these two cases within just a few weeks of each other, would people react to these threats as much. Would either of these students have brought weapons on campus before or more often with such a law passed and possibly acted on their alleged threats? Luckily, we won’t have to find out.

 

Today, the defendants in the Sean Bell case all got acquitted and now the black community is upset. If you don’t know already, Sean Bell was killed, on the night before his wedding, by three police officers, who were undercover. The officers tried to stop Bell from driving away, but Bell refused and drove until he hit a van. When Bell stepped out of his car, he was shot and killed.

The judge for this case ruled in favor of the three officers on trial, despite the prosecution providing around 50 witnesses. He stated that some of the witnesses contradicted themselves, and their demeanor were questionable; therefore, the prosecution couldn’t prove the officers were guilty, because there was doubt about the reliability of the witnesses.

The thing about criminal cases is that, there has to be proof without a reasonable doubt to prove the defendants are guilty.  Convicting somebody because the prosecution’s story is sad,  isn’t an ethical way to handle a trial. It’s really sad that he got killed the night before his wedding, but we still have to look at the facts. And frankly, the prosecution couldn’t muster enough reliable witnesses to win.
The black community is extremely outraged and I don’t see why. First off, it wasn’t a hate crime. The guy just happened to be black, and two of the officers that shot him were also black. Al Sharpton, did a post trial interview and expressed his frustration with the verdict. He stated that the “justice system was aborted”, and they will prosecute the officers in the civil court. Al Sharpton, should read the trial transcript before coming to those conclusions. If the prosecution did have witnesses that contradicted themselves, it should be a no brainer that the officers can’t be proven guilty. You just can’t send somebody to jail, because it seems like the right thing to do.

After the verdict the black community was outraged. This video does an excellent job portraying the anger they felt. “These cops getting away with murder, and nobody gona say nothing”  Those people feel really adamantly about sending the defendants to prison.

Yeah.

Few days ago somebody won an auction for a 2008 BMW M3 on Ebay for $60,000. Minutes after he was confirmed the winner, the dealership–selling the car– gave him a phone call; they told him that the listing price was a mistake and he would not be getting the car. It makes sense why the dealer didn’t want to sell the car to him: The new M3 is so popular that many dealerships have been spiking up the price from $70,000 to over $100,000. This incident has sparked controversy all over the online automotive niche; should he be able to purchase the car with the price he won the auction with? To answer this question let’s talk about contracts.

 
What is a contract? It is an agreement between two entities that is enforceable by law.

There are two types of contracts.

• 1. Bilateral- a promise exchanged for a promise( This incident is a Bilateral one)
  2. Unilateral – a promise exchanged for an act.

There are four requirements to a contract

• 1. There must be an agreement made between two parties
  a. Offer
  b. Acceptance
  2. Must have consideration( both parties must give something in the bargain)
  3. Contractual Capacity – all parties are legally capable of entering into contracts
  4. Legality – contract must be legal

 
Obviously, the 3rd and the 4th requirements are met. Both the parties know what is at risk and are competent enough to make their own decisions. There are a few exceptions to this rule; neither party can be insane, drunk, or underage when the contract was made. If any of those qualifications are met, the contract will become a voidable one (legal but can be voided). The 4th requirement is met, because it’s an exchange for two promises that are legal. The guy gives the dealer money, and then the dealer gives the guy the car, nothing illegal there.

 
The 1st requirement is the most controversial to meet. An agreement for a contract happens by two events: an offer and an acceptance. The offer is a promise to perform or refrain from performing an act in the future. In auctions—like Ebay— the seller invites people to bid on their products by submitting offers; however, these offers are not offers to form a contract. Think of it as the sellers are just testing the waters to see how much money somebody would go into a contract for. The seller can revoke bids or all bids, until the auction ends. But when the auction ends a contract is usually formed: All auctions are considered to have a reserve, unless otherwise stated. The reserve means that the seller can refuse to sell and not make a contract. But in this case, the Ebay auction had “no reserve” and therefore entered a contract with the buyer. Auctions that clearly state they have no reserve must be sold to the highest bidder. The Uniform Commercial Code ( I believe chapter 15) states reinforces this concept of the reserve. There is a court case relating to this issue: A plaintiff won a domain name and the company refused to sell it. In the end, the company was forced to sell it because it was a legal contract. Lim v The.Tv Corp. International, 99 Cal.App.4th 684 (2nd Dist 2002).

 
The second part of the 1st requirement requires acceptance. This means that the seller must have shown assent, or agreement to the terms of the offer. The dealership knew what it was getting into by putting no reserve and listing it on Ebay. Additionally, an acceptance can be made through words or conduct. If the dealership had already setup directions on how to pay and what would be done when won; it is basically accepting the agreement before the offer is made.

 
The 2nd requirement for a contract requires consideration. It must have legally sufficient value and there must be a bargained-for exchange. Having legal value just means, the seller and buyer are not obligated to exchange goods but are doing so anyways. The guy doesn’t have to buy the car, there are no legal consequences by doing so; he does it by his own will. Bargained-for exchange means that either now or the future both parties must incur detriment, meaning they must lose something; the guy would lose the money and the dealership would lose the car. Both parties have to lose something. For instance, if Jon said he’ll give you $500 and never does, you can’t sue him for breach of contract: This isn’t bargain-for exchange because Jon isn’t getting anything in return. Consideration is really easy to meet in the case of auctions because. There are no obligations to sign up for the auction and there is always an exchange from both parties. That guy wasn’t required to bid, but since he won he suffers detriment, by trading his money for the car. Both requirements are settled for consideration.

 

That guy has a really good shot at purchasing the car for the price he won it at. It seems like all the requirements for a contract are met; therefore, it’s legally enforceable. Too bad he can’t take it straight to Federal Court: I believe the amount in question has to be greater than $70,000. But I doubt he’ll have to use the courts; most likely, the dealership will settle with him by giving an incentive to release them from the contract.

 

Yeah.